


Flawed

by usedupshiver



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: De-Serumed Steve Rogers, M/M, Pre-Slash, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usedupshiver/pseuds/usedupshiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was some pretty nasty bruising and they have no way of knowing what the removal of the serum might do to you on a cellular level and -”</p><p>”Tony, shut up.” There was something gritty and standoffish about this version of Steve that Tony wasn't familiar with. The prickly aura of a man with too much to prove. ”Look at me. I'm the poster boy for 'something wrong'."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flawed

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Defectuoso](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488991) by [La traductora (PerlaNegra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerlaNegra/pseuds/La%20traductora)



> (Yes, I have a huge thing for skinny Steve. So sue me.)

Tony quietly pushed the door open and shuffled in, trying not to make a noise, eyes glued to the narrow back that apparently belonged to Steve. He was sitting on the far side of the hospital bed, shoulders hunched, head tilted forward so Tony could only see his knobbly neck and a hint of his messy, blond hair. Then Tony froze right there, couldn't find any words that felt right, not sure if he would be welcome, or if he should turn and leave before Steve even noticed he'd come.

Apparently it was too late to sneak away, though.

”I'm not deaf, you know?” Steve's voice was somehow still exactly the same. But he was speaking to his own lap, not raising his head at all.

”Really?” Tony made himself step all the way inside the room, letting the door fall shut behind him. ”That's not what the nurse told me.”

With a little huff that made his sharply marked shoulder blades move under the thin hospital gown, Steve raised a hand and tapped a finger against his right ear. ”This one got a bit messed up when I was a kid. Too many infections, probably. Doesn't mean I can't hear you come stomping in.”

”I wasn't _stomping_ ”, Tony objected.

All he got was a little ”whatever you say” kind of shrug.

”You doing all right?”

Another shrug. This one with just one shoulder, and looking more like a ”what do you think?”. And okay that had probably been a stupid question.

Tony left his hovering by the door and walked around the bed to come sit down next to Steve, completely uninvited. No protest greeted him, but Steve didn't look up either, still staring down at his lap where his hands were laced together across his slim thighs, covered in papery hospital pants.

”I'm out, aren't I?” Steve spoke to his hands. ”Off the team?”

”Yeah, well, Fury's benched you until they're sure there's nothing wrong with you.”

That at last made that tousled, blond head twitch up and blue eyes settle on Tony's face. They were so much the same, his whole face was, really. Just in a smaller, more delicate way. And the look in his eyes was a very familiar ”don't be an idiot” kind of look.

”Are you kidding me?”

”No? There was some pretty nasty bruising and they have no way of knowing what the removal of the serum might do to you on a cellular level and -”

”Tony, shut up.” There was something gritty and standoffish about this version of Steve that Tony wasn't familiar with. The prickly aura of a man with too much to prove. ”Look at me. I'm the poster boy for 'something wrong'. The only positive thing is that, apparently, the last years of physical activity have strengthened my lungs and airways enough that I'm not asthmatic anymore. So there's that. But I'm still nothing compared to what I was. I probably couldn't even lift the shield like this, and you know it.”

”Probably”, Tony reluctantly agreed, because yeah, point. ”But no, you're not off the team. You're still an Avenger.”

”For now.” Steve's head dropped forward again, between drawn up shoulders.

Silence fell between them for a while, Tony not sure what to say, how to make this better. He couldn't, really, and... well...:

”This is all my fault, Steve.”

He got a sideways glare. ”What are you talking about?”

While he fidgeted in his seat, rubbing the back of his neck, Tony's gaze flitted around the hospital room without settling on anything. ”If I'd known the serum was in that car, I wouldn't -”

”Wouldn't have chased those Hydra agents off the road”, Steve spoke over him. ”'Course you wouldn't. I know you wouldn't. You wouldn't want it to end like that either way, I know that. Killing them wasn't a priority and you would have done anything to avoid it, anyway.”

 _Maybe not_ , Tony wanted to say. _Maybe I did want them dead, after I saw you strapped to that table, all bloody and looking so damn frail and for a moment there I thought we'd lost you for good and I... need to not think about why it felt like that might kill me, too._

What he did say was: ”Still. If I'd known, I would have done more. I'd have brought it back, I'd have... Well, I'd have...”

”Fixed me?”

Tony huffed, exasperated. ”There's nothing wrong with you. I told you that. You're just... you.”

”Exactly.” The bitterness was nearly enough to make the paint peel off the hideously mint-green walls.

”Steve, come on.” More on an impulse than anything else, Tony lifted an arm and settled it around his shoulders. Noting how he didn't have to stretch and reach to manage that anymore. Steve just seemed to fit there now, tucked against his side. ”We'll work something out. That's what we do, right?"

Steve sighed, tired and annoyed. But he leaned more into Tony's side instead of away from him when he slumped, weary.

He didn't say anything, though, so Tony made the decision for him: ”Let's go home.”

* * *

The next morning, Steve had to struggle to get up on the bar chair by the kitchen island where they usually had breakfast. Everyone kept their mouths shut, pretending not to notice. Except Tony, who watched his clambering and his burning cheeks without a word. Steve had expected a teasing quip, but none came. That almost stung worse. Like Tony thought he couldn't take it anymore.

The morning after that, there were metal bars attached to the legs of all the breakfast chairs, at just the right height that Steve could hook his heel over it and slide right up into the seat.

That morning Tony didn't look at him, but Steve thought he saw him give a pleased little smile into his cup of coffee.

Next day four boxes of new clothes in his size arrived at his rooms. He hadn't ordered those, hadn't thought that far ahead, still unwilling to accept that this was it, his new (old) life, but it was basically exactly the clothes he'd preferred to wear before this all happened, and they must have been made to his measurements because they fit perfectly.

Tony didn't say a word when Steve showed up for movie night at the end of the day, dressed in a new pair of jeans and one of the softest sweaters he'd ever worn. Tony just bounced down into the seat next to Steve on the couch, plunked the bowl of popcorn he'd been carrying into Steve's lap, and that was that. But when Tony settled his arm along the backrest behind Steve's head, the way he always did, Steve turned enough in his seat that he could lean with his back into Tony's side, under that arm. A silent, affectionate thank you.

The hand that angled back to ruffle his hair told him it had been heard.

A week later there was a tiny box waiting in his mail. Not addressed, so it must be from someone inside the Tower. The fingerprint smudges in oil along one side of the cardboard made him suspect that he knew exactly who had left it there.

Inside the box was a hearing aid, wrapped securely in a clean piece of cloth. Just the same kind as Tony had made for Clint, but even smaller. Somehow it fit perfectly in Steve's right ear. He had no idea how Tony had managed that, but after a few days of strange echos as he got used to the little device, his hearing was just as good on both sides.

A month later the doctors at SHIELD medical cleared him for active duty. At least what sort of active duty he could manage like this.

He still had heart issues, but they were monitored and medicated now. Help no doctor had ever been able to offer in the 30s or 40s.

The asthma was gone.

Tony had fixed his bad ear.

When he was allowed sleep and warmth and healthy eating he wasn't as scrawny and weak as he remembered. With his functioning airways he could even work out, even if it felt damn pitiful compared to what he'd used to do in the gym, and he preferred to do it when there was no-one else there. Even if they pretended not to watch him and his pathetic little weights he still felt the staring.

Still, it seemed like every time he was really getting started on a work out, Tony showed up. Tossing him a water bottle and silently slipping into place to spot him, placing a firm hand on him now and then, pushing gently to correct his form when his core wasn't stable enough to hold it. And part of Steve, the proud and prickly part, wanted to snarl his help away, but when it came down to it, he ended up just accepting it and actually being grateful.

So, well, he wasn't the wreck he'd been before the war, but he was a far cry from being able to pick up the shield and be a hero again. Actually, he didn't even know where the shield was anymore. It hadn't been in his rooms when he came back from medical, and back then he hadn't even thought about it that much. It had felt too irrelevant. But, well, it was his, wasn't it?

Maybe SHIELD had kept it, when he couldn't go back on the team? But then he rememebered a discussion with Tony, a long time ago, about how the shield wasn't theirs, had never been theirs.

”Howard made that”, Tony had said, rapping his knuckles against the center star. ”If there's ever a day when you decide to put it down, it's Stark property. Not SHIELD.”

Steve had a strong feeling that Tony would never let them keep it, even if they didn't want him to carry it anymore. Even if he couldn't.

Then JARVIS passed on the message that Tony wanted to see him in the workshop.

Steve was surprised, because that had never happened before. Sure, Steve had spent time down there, sometimes a lot of it, but always inviting himself. Now he didn't know what to expect. But even when he thought he'd been prepared for anything, he was still completely blown away.

Because Tony had built him an armour. One that looked basically like a smaller, slimmer version of the Iron Man armour, dark blue with the white stripes and star from Steve's stealth suit, making the shoulders look wide. The wings from his old cowl were painted onto the sides of the helmet. His shield was standing propped against its right leg, the colours bright in contrast with the dark armour, ready to be picked up and carried into battle.

Tony, who had only let this kind of tech be used by one other person, and that was his oldest friend in the world.

”Are you really sure about this, Tony?” Steve ran his fingertips along the forearm of his suit, the elegantly interlocked metal plates worked together so smoothly he could barely feel the grooves. Work of art.

”Well”, Tony started as he stepped up to rest a heavy arm around his shoulders. ”You remember what you told me, back on the Carrier, right?”

_Big man in a suit of armour... Take that off, what are you?_

Steve groaned, his head dropping so he wouldn't have to see the suit in front of him. ”Haven't we been over that enough by now? I was wrong, okay? Would you just let it go already?”

”Yeah, you were, and I have. I mean, that's not the point. That you were wrong about me. The point is we were wrong about each other.” Tony held on a little tighter. ”Everything special about you is still right here. And you were not just a big man with a shield, either. You never were.”

He dared throw a careful, guarded glance up at Tony's face. ”Special?”

”You're kidding me right, Rogers? Or just fishing for compliments?” But Tony was smiling. ”You're not our Captain because of the widest shoulders I have ever seen. Okay? It's 'cause you're brave.” Tony poked a finger into his sternum. ”And brilliant.” He tapped a knuckle to Steve's temple. ”You've got a head for strategy that none of us can match. So we need you out there in the field. And to get back out there?” Tony gave a sideways nod to the new armour, without taking his eyes off Steve. ”You need that.”

Steve could only keep staring at the dark, sleek-looking suit, realizing that in that, from a distance, he'd look pretty much like his serum-enhanced self. As well as he could, Tony had given him his other body back. Just like he'd eased him back into life in the Tower, offered quiet help and support in everything he'd been too proud to even think to ask for. It felt like way more than he deserved.

”We're the breakable humans on the team”, Tony continued when he never said anything, a strong hand squeezing his shoulder. ”The ones with the flawed hearts. Seems right that we should both be the big men in suits of armour.”

Still wordless Steve turned around, pushed up a bit on his toes so he could wrap his arms around Tony in a long, hard hug, face buried in the side of his neck, feeling Tony's arms come to hold him in turn. And he knew that no matter what Tony claimed that he was without his armour, Steve knew the truth well by now – he was all heart, and it wasn't flawed at all.


End file.
